Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Module Creation: I think there are three issues here, Av:

1. Creating a module that is not flagged as requiring an expansion while having the expansion installed.

2. Compatibility issues between different versions of the game.

3. Compatibility issues between classic and classic + xp installs (both at the same version - say 1.31).

In the first case, there are a couple of options such as dual install or manually editing the module.ifo file using the erf and gff editors available from the For Developers section of the community site. They're not perfect solutions, but they get the job done. In the second case, compatibility issues between different versions of the game are a fact of life. If something changes between 1.29 and 1.31 that changes how your module works, you're going to have to take the time and update it. Backwards compatibility of this nature cannot be completely guaranteed. Finally, in the third case, with the exception of the new game resources (tilesets, creatures, place-ables, etc.) that's a problem and should be fixed. I have a dual NWN / NWN + SoU install on my home machine (I'm currently on vacation), updated to 1.31 and tested each of the problems you listed in both your posts in a new module I created using the original NWN (1.31):

1. Cross-area waypoint-walking worked in NWN but not NWN + SoU
2. Secret doors worked in NWN but does not appear to in NWN + SoU.
3. Custom factions work in both.
4. Posts work in both.

So, there are still problems with some of the features in the game that may impact a module's ability to be created in the original game and played in an expansion. These will hopefully be corrected soon and once they are, the module builder will be able to create their original NWN module and play it on any server. In the long term, it will not require the module builder to redo their original NWN module (using only original NWN resources) for each install option (NWN, NWN/SoU, NWN/HotU, NWN/SoU/HotU).

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Beholder AI: Beholders are likely to run their own mini AI scripts.

Levels: Each additional level costs time to implement, time for data entry, time for creating familiars and associate templates, etc. 40 is enough.

Quote: I wasn't too clear on flame weapon. The description mentions if the main weapon is magical or has any spell effect, the off-hand weapon is affected by flame weapon instead. Does this mean flame weapon will only work on plain, non-magical weapons? Or is it only in the case of dual wielding?

You can target a specific weapon, or a creature. If you target a creature, the first hand weapon is affected. If that weapon is not valid for any reason (i.e. not a melee weapon, no weapon equipped or even already flaming), the weapon in the offhand is affected. Thats basically how those spells work.

Quote: Thanks Georg. More specifically though, will it affect magical weapons? The description may be ambiguous on that, "If you or your target dual-wield and your main weapon either is magical or has some spell cast on it, this spell will target the off-hand weapon."

I am not sure, but I think the spell might work on magical weapons as long as they are not flaming.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Petition: Thanks a bunch for not doing the petition on our forums. They are treated as spam and are locked. I would like to call out some points that I will expand upon later as time permits.

- 1.32 will be coming out very soon as an emergency patch to address a server crash exploit. We will not be giving any more details than that about the exploit.

- 1.33 is the planned update to fix the introduced DM Client issues. Originally 1.32 was the target, but the server crash exploit forced us to rechedule.

- Petitions have absolutely no effect on how we prioritize bugs in NWN. The petition just reaffirms to us just how much you guys care about our game.

- almost all of the DM bugs listed in that petition are already in our bug database and slated to be fixed in 1.33

Patch 1.32: We are just doing some final testing. Hopefully, we will have the Beta for you tomorrow (Thurs).

Quote: Thanks Derek. What's the BW position on publicly posting the list of valid bugs submitted by users? This would save BW and the user community much time and frustration

That actually doesn't save us any time as it turns into one more thing to maintain. We already have enough things on our plate that adding a non-bug fixing task to it would just take away from us fixing bugs.

Quote: Why wouldn’t you try and clean up a few of the DM client bugs with 1.32 beta?

Because each new fix added, adds time to make, time to test, and simply more time. If we do, the 1.32 Update won't come out in Beta this week and the servers are crashing right now.

Quote: I mean is it possible to actually make the code any worse?

Yes. By rushing something like this, things will get worse. So we are going to take our time and do it right in 1.33

Quote: Who know at least by making an attempt to look at them you might actually make people happy, isn’t that what you want?

No. We don't want to make people happy. We want to fix bugs and other issues. If by doing that people get happy, then that is good.

Patch 1.32: Hi there. We have been made aware of a server crash exploit today and we are preparing the 1.32 Update to address this. The first Beta should be sometime this week. Due to the sensitive nature of all exploits, we won't be providing you any details on the issue. The DM Client issues as well as other bugs that were originally scheduled for being fixed in 1.32 have been moved to 1.33.

Quote: And is it going to address the problem of what looks like people being able to load hacked characters in Server Vault servers. Currently there is one running around on Mystara with 255 stats. He was apparently seen on Dragon Coast as well. Is Enforce Legal Characters turned on? If not, then it's not a bug.

Correct. The only way we can duplilcate this, is by turning off ELC. If you have it off, then you need to script checks when the character enters your world.

David Gaider, Designer

HotU Roleplaying: A "richer roleplaying experience". From the ability to be a gold elf, or a shield dwarf instead of just an elf or dwarf. Really. It makes that much of a difference in the roleplaying. Somehow I just don't buy it. And insofar as this Underdark adventure being the "perfect place" to play a drow... how so? Either your drow character is tapped for the mission because of supposed knowledge of the Underdark (which the player may not have) or the mission involves infiltrating a drow city (which then would make sense, but isn't the case). Otherwise it's just a drow going in to do what any other character would be doing... except in this case the setting is the Underdark, Underdark NPC's would have to react completely differently (what fun! entirely new dialogue for a subrace), and you would maybe lose the character in the dark screens but for that blazing white hair. So, no... HotU is not inherently a better place to implement subraces than anyplace else and we're not changing our minds.

Quote: Does this mean that you cannot change wing colour independantly (so that they correspond to skin colour) or that there is a single generic colour for all wings? Sorry to pester you!

You cannot change the colour of the wings at all. Each wing model has its corresponding colour... so if the "dragon wing" model is red, for instance, it is always red regardless of the skin colour of the model it's been placed on.